


Fire and the Flood

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, F/M, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: Then: The cold is biting, finding its way inside despite his effort to burrow into his layers. He feels the cold extinguishing something in him, a fire he’s been suffering for years. But though he leaves her – though he has to, to protect his heart, to keep himself from doing something rash – he still feels her with him.Now: There’s a light on in her window. Well, he doesn’t actually know if it’s hers anymore. He stops outside her building. He hesitates. He wonders…





	Fire and the Flood

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by/based on Fire and the Flood by Ed Sheeran.

_Now_

Fitz isn’t likely to admit it, but he loves the romance of the high street in snowfall. The days before Christmas brim with magic – not that he _believes_ in actual magic, mind. But there’s undeniably an enchantment that’s cast by a collective eagerness and the lampposts wrapped in fairy lights and special holiday breads glowing in the storefronts.

Tonight is the solstice, so most people are at home with their families, celebrating the pagan holdover with cider and leaving the new snow to him. He’s gotten over the loneliness of being new (or, rather, new again) to the small town, pushed aside the memories long enough to tuck himself in enough knitwear to satisfy even his mum, were she here, and gone for a stroll in the silence.

It’s beautiful enough, really, to make him forget his self-pity for a moment. Alone on the solstice – alone at Christmas, probably, unless he decides to be one of the sad wankers in a pub that day. Still. He smiles up at the sky, its blackness somehow purpled by the hanging clouds of snow. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening.

He’d wondered if he’d need to reacquaint himself with the place, after six years away. But his heart has a damnably powerful memory, and his feet follow it.

He finds himself on Brewster Court and laughs to himself in the muffled silence. Of course.

There’s a light on in her window. Well, he doesn’t actually know if it’s hers anymore. She’d probably been gone shortly after him. They’ve talked, of course, intermittently and without the depth he craved, and she never mentions where she lives. He hasn’t seen her for ages. (Six years, of course. Not that he’s been without her, not really. Forgetting her would be like forgetting his own name. Remembering her feels like breathing, but also a little bit like crying.)

He stops outside her building. He hesitates. He wonders…

 

_Then_

“You check.”

“No, you.”

“ _You_!”

“It’s your flat!”

“In which I let you kip!”

Jemma jabs Fitz’s chest and he curls inwards, catching her hand and groaning, pretending to be mortally wounded. She laughs, turning her face slightly into the pillow.

“It’s a meter away, Fitz.”

“Then you do it.”

She pouts. He does his darnedest not to show how that affects him. Can’t have her knowing she’s got him so thoroughly wrapped about her little finger or she’ll be winning every argument.

“Roshambo?”

They push up onto their elbows, the old couch springs creaking under the movement. Jemma wins, of course.

“Oh, Fitz,” she chuckles, and falls back so that her hair fans over her pillow, and a bit onto his as well.

 _I could get used to this_ , he thinks, even as he grumbles and pointedly climbs over her, kneeing her and nearly elbowing her nose, tumbling off the edge of the pulled-out sofa as Jemma kicks him off. _I could wake up every morning like this_.

At the window, he peeks out to check on the progress of the snowstorm that trapped him at Jemma’s last night, an imprisonment neither had minded as they’d pulled out her couch and watched a sitcom from the 80s on her excuse for a television. Jemma could’ve slept in her own bed, but she’d fallen asleep next to him, her fingers close to his on top of the covers.

“Looks like it’s done,” he reports, squinting into the blinding, complete whiteness outside. “They haven’t started clearing it away but it’s not falling anymore.”

Jemma hums and shields her eyes with the back of her hand. “Suppose that means we need to get up.”

“Nggggghhhh,” Fitz replies, pitching himself back onto the couch and over her legs. “Five more minutes.”

 

_Now_

“Hell— _Fitz?”_

If it’s possible for a body to be struck by lightning and tremble down to its mitochondria and shiver through every nerve ending and yet show none of this, that’s what Fitz is experiencing.

“Hey. Hi,” he manages.

Jemma shakes her head, incredulous, then shoves the door properly open and hugs him right there on the threshold. She’s in her pajamas, bare feet on the welcome mat, and she clings to him so tightly his scarf might fuse itself into the skin of his neck. (He wouldn’t mind.)

“ _Fitz_ ,” she repeats when she finally lets go. He’d run through a thousand painful scenarios on the way up the stairs – she isn’t here, _he_ is here, she doesn’t want to see him, something terrible has happened, she doesn’t remember him, she doesn’t much care either way – and the sheer brilliance of her smile and incredulity with which she says his name makes every one of those fears worth it. He’ll climb that staircase with a knot in his stomach a thousand times, if she will only greet him like this.

“Come in, come in,” she insists, practically dragging him by the fabric of his coatsleeve.

“Wasn’t sure you lived here anymore,” he says. He notices she’s looking at him, still beaming, hands fluttering like she wants to hug him again, and he blushes, choosing to take in her flat instead. It’s changed, of course, just as he imagines Jemma herself has since last they saw each other, but it still feels right. The lights are warm, there’s a new stretch of exposed brick, and she’s loaded up the big windowsill with plants. He doesn’t have to glance into the kitchen to be sure the breakfast nook is still in use.

“Well.” Jemma shrugs. “Where else was I going to go?”

She takes his coat and laughs at his excessive layers and quizzes him on his job and his mum and he swears he can feel the rightness of it all thrumming in his blood.

 

_Then_

When they finally do get out of bed and off the couch, Fitz isn’t in any rush to leave, and Jemma doesn’t seem to mind. She puts on gloves – right there, in the apartment, probably more to be dramatic than anything – and they make tea and sit in the breakfast nook and watch dogs and children frolic in the snowdrifts, chased by their weary minders. Sometimes their eyes catch across the table and they both smile into their mugs. Fitz’s leg bounces under the table, just because he feels too giddy to sit completely still.

 

_Now_

“I just can’t believe it,” Jemma says again. “You’re really here. After all this time—”

“I feel the same way,” he admits, hoping it’s not too much. It just feels so _easy_ with her. Had it felt this way, before? Or is it something about the way they’ve both changed in the past half-decade, separately but not apart, that makes them fit together so neatly?

They’re sitting side by side on the couch – a new one; she’s replaced the old fold-out for something a bit more chic – while some kind of modern jazz plays from the kitchen. He remembers hating modern jazz. In this moment, he can’t remember why.

“They all asked about you, you know,” Jemma tells him, a hint of teasing in her voice. “The butcher, the baker—”

“The candlestick maker?”

She smacks his knee. “You know we haven’t got one of those. I’m serious, Fitz, they were all sad to see you go. I think Mrs. McAllister from the grocer’s honestly thought you’d marry her daughter.”

Fitz snorts. “I think Mrs. McAllister honestly thought I’d marry Mrs. McAllister.”

She laughs. (She keeps doing that, laughing at his stupid jokes, and for the first time in six years he lets himself imagine that she feels the same way.) They keep talking about the townspeople, the new folk who’ve drifted in from London and threatened to make the place horribly modern, the traditionalists who’ve actually started flyer campaigns to prevent too many changes – but even as they rattle off names, even as he knows there’s a whole humming hive of people out there, that some of them are just beyond that wall, he can’t help feeling they’re the only two people in the world. The snow is falling quick and thick outside the window and maybe he should say something, should get home before it’s too heavy, but maybe it’s snowing because they’re here together. Maybe it’s snowing to keep them together.

 

_Then_

Fitz keeps his hands wrapped around the mug long after the tea is gone and the ceramic has cooled. Jemma’s besocked toes nudge him under the table.

“Cent for your thoughts.”

He glances up at her and smiles. The smile is a lie. He’s got to leave in a few, there’s no appropriate way to drag this out further, and as always happens when he feels this critical moment before going away, he’s falling into a mood. She’s still here, just across the little table, her beautiful face poking out of that silly turtleneck, but he already feels like he’s gone. It’s just been so _lovely,_ so easy, the last twelve hours with her. Everything he could ever want. Why can’t he just tell her that? Tell her what he wants?

“This has been nice,” he answers her, lamely, so far short of the truth.

Her lips contract, like she’s thinking. “It could go on being nice,” she says hesitatingly. “You could stay a while. Have another sleepover. Maybe with some wine and some…”

She’s just being polite, Fitz realizes. It’s so obvious, her uncertainty, the slight pleading in her eyes to understand her real meaning. She doesn’t want me to stay. Why would she? He knows she values their friendship, but there’s only so much Fitz anyone can take.

“Thanks, Jem, but I really should be going.” Jemma’s gaze drops into her lap – probably to hide her relief, he thinks sadly. “I’ll wash up.”

 

_Now_

Jemma keeps watching him long after they’ve run out of proper things to say. Fitz nudges her knee.

“Cent for your thoughts.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, aware she’s been caught staring, and smiles. Fitz’s lips mirror her, her soft joy infectious or shared, theirs.

“This has been nice,” she murmurs. “I missed you.”

It’s such a simple statement, but it presses across the straining surface of his heart.

“I missed you too.” He thinks about leaving it there. He’s never been good at the vulnerable honesty. Then again, he climbed forty-eight steps filled with fear only to find Jemma waiting, after all this time. Maybe it really can be this easy, this lovely. Everything he could ever want. “But – and this is going to sound daft – I don’t feel like I’ve been _missing_ you. Like – I knew you weren’t there, obviously, but you were also everywhere. I’d be in the market and see a certain kind of biscuits and think, ‘Ah, Jemma’s favorite.’”

He shrugs, embarrassed, but Jemma is nodding. “I know exactly what you mean. You were leagues away and I still…felt you, all the time.”

Fitz hums wisely and Jemma chuckles, ducking her head. There’s a moment of companionable silence, and then the radio announcer’s voice from the next room is saying the time and Fitz grimaces – he hadn’t realized it’s gotten so late.

“Right, I should go, you were obviously about to go to bed –”

Jemma’s lips contract, like she’s thinking. “You don’t have to go,” she says, eyes steady on him. “You could stay a while.”

He sinks back onto the edge of the couch. “I don’t want to disturb you—”

“You’re not. And—” Her fingers dig into the cushion, her taut knuckles pressing into the side of his knee. “I hope you’ll forgive me but I somehow managed to muck this up the six dozen or so times I tried to tell you, all those years ago, but I could never find the words, and I don’t want to risk you misunderstanding again—I’d like you to stay, Fitz. I – I’d like you to stay forever, if you don’t mind.”

She _has_ changed, he can see it clearly. She’s still nervous as she’s saying it, but she’s sure of herself. She’s more direct.

But he’s changed too.

Because, for the first time, he genuinely believes that it’s possible.

“Forever?” he repeats, taking her fretting hand off the cushion and holding it tenderly.

Jemma shrugs, eyes filling with tears that betray her nonchalance. “You’re my best friend,” she whispers.

He bows his head until his nose brushes her cheek and catches a few tears on its tip. “And you’re more than that, Jemma.”

She presses shaking lips to his, and the whisper of the snow on the windowpanes sounds like _at last, at last, at last._

_Then_

Fitz gathers his things from the armchair in the living room, then sets them back down to strip the couch and fold it back up. (His mother hadn’t raised him to be a slob in other people’s houses – only his own.) He’s wrapping tucking his scarf into his jumper when Jemma laughs from the doorway and he hears another person with her.

“I just can’t believe it,” Jemma is chuckling. “You’re really here. After all this time—”

“I know! I feel the same way, it’s insane.”

He steps into the front hall and sees Jemma practically pressed to the side of a tall man with a postal service uniform and an obnoxiously perfect smile.

“Fitz!” Jemma exclaims, guiding her companion into the light. “This is Trip. He’s been delivering my packages for – three years now?”

“At least,” Trip chortles, grinning at Fitz, and _god_ does Fitz hate his kind eyes.

“But we’ve never met! And he’s always been _so_ considerate, leaving my packages with the Donahues when I’m out, even though that’s not technically protocol, I left out some biscuits for him last summer and he left a drawing his little sister did – and now he’s here!”

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Trip beams.

Jemma laughs. (She keeps doing that, laughing with Trip, and for the first time since they became friends Fitz sees what everyone always says about Jemma being an obvious flirt. Why is she trying so hard? She doesn’t even seem like herself.)  They keep talking, Jemma and Trip, but even as they bond like old chums, Fitz can’t help feeling he’s not really there anymore. They look like they’re the only two people in the world. All his dread, all his uncertainty, all his self-loathing – here they are in a perfect, tall, muscular manifestation, and he knows he was right. He and Jemma could never be.

 

_Now_

When they finally manage to force themselves apart (they try a few times, but Jemma’s discovered she loves kissing the part of Fitz’s neck where his beard thins away and Fitz is entranced by the feeling of her cheek under his thumb and lips), Fitz certainly isn’t in any rush to leave anymore, nor is Jemma eager to have him go. She draws the curtains – a good sign, Fitz thinks -- and they make spiced rum and snuggle on the couch and murmur to each other (with equal parts chagrin and humor) about all the times they’d come so close. Sometimes their eyes catch over their mugs and they both smile. Their free hands lay against Fitz’s chest, fingers tangled, just because they feel too giddy to be apart.

 

_Then_

If it’s possible for a body to disintegrate and shatter down to its mitochondria and crumble through every nerve ending and yet show none of this, that’s what Fitz is experiencing.

“Falling in love with the mailman – how often does _that_ happen?” he mutters.

He wishes there were a feeling of everything dropping away. He wishes there were some great breaking-glass moment where he realizes the rightness of moments spent with Jemma were all fantasy. He wishes he didn’t adore the brilliance of her smile and the way she says his name and how it makes him feel every time she hugs him. He wishes he hated her –

No, he thinks as he slips out of her apartment, Jemma barely noticing as she’s draping herself over Trip. No, he’d never wish that. 

The snow looks grey and defeated already, the charm gone. Perfect setting for his self-pity.

He doesn’t stop to look back. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t wonder.

The cold is biting, finding its way inside despite his effort to burrow into his layers. He feels the cold extinguishing something in him, a fire he’s been suffering for years.

But though he leaves her – though he has to, to protect his heart, to keep himself from doing something rash – he still feels her with him.

 

_Now_

 “You check.”

“No, you.”

“ _You_!”

“It’s your flat!”

“In which I let you do unspeakable things to me!”

Jemma nips at Fitz’s bare chest and he curls inwards, trapping her hips between his legs and groaning, pretending to be mortally wounded. She laughs, pressing her face into his shoulder.  

“It’s a meter away, Fitz.”

“Then you do it.”

She bites her lip seductively. He does his darnedest not to show how that affects him. Can’t have her knowing she’s got him so thoroughly wrapped about her little finger or she’ll be winning every argument. Maybe he doesn’t care. It just feels so… complete, to lay next to her like this, to rest on the same pillow.

“Roshambo?”

They push up onto their elbows, the sheets slipping to their waists. Jemma wins, of course.

“Oh, Fitz,” she chuckles, and she falls back onto the bed, hair fanning across the pillows.

 _I love this_ , he thinks, flooded with affection even as he pointedly rolls over Jemma, pressing their bodies together sinuously before slipping off the bed, not bothering to cover his nudity. _I can’t wait to wake up every morning like this_.

At the window, he peeks out to check on the progress of the snowstorm.

“Still raging,” he lies, pulling the curtain aside to show her the perfectly clear blue sky. “Can’t see a thing.”

Jemma hums and smirks at him, her legs dropping open under the sheets. “However will we pass the time?”

She floods his senses, she pulses in his blood, she has waited and he has waited and they have found each other again.

“You’ll think of something,” he grins, and crawls back into bed with her.  

**Author's Note:**

> The structure made a lot of sense in my head/in the table I made in Word (lol) but I can't tell if it came through well in practice... Hope it wasn't too jarring!


End file.
